


take my whole life, too

by elisela



Series: the trees of vermont [14]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, Married Life, Soft Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25618921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisela/pseuds/elisela
Summary: He’s not sure what they’re talking about, but they look happy, relaxed, and then Buck says—“I always wished someone would serenade me.”And somehow, Eddie’s at a music store the next day in Burlington, buying a guitar.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: the trees of vermont [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790356
Comments: 3
Kudos: 131





	take my whole life, too

Eddie’s not sure why he does it. 

Well, that’s not true—they’re in Bobby’s backyard on a warm July night, the kids running around with sparklers, popping little plastic champagne bottles full of confetti over people’s heads when they’re not looking. Eddie’s standing near the grill with Michael and Bobby (he may not be able to cook but he’s from Texas, okay, he knows how to barbecue), recounting some of his funnier stories about being in the military (he can _joke_ about it now, doesn’t feel like choking whenever he mentions it) when Buck’s bright laughter draws his gaze. 

“So he starts singing this _song_ and I swear I was so close to losing it,” Maddie says, “I had to pretend to be sick so I could run to the bathroom and laugh.”

He’s not sure what they’re talking about, but they look happy, relaxed, and then Buck says—

“I always wished someone would serenade me.”

And somehow, Eddie’s at a music store the next day in Burlington, buying a guitar. 

Eddie’s never liked being an amateur. It’s not that he dislikes learning, or thinks he should be great at everything right away, but he feels too deeply the judging looks that people will give (whether they’re in his imagination or not is another story), so his original plan had been: buy a guitar online, hide it, practice like crazy until he could get a simple song out, sing to Buck. 

He falls into a Buck-esque research spiral after they leave Bobby’s house that night, googling guitars on his phone and watching “learn to play” youtube videos until 3am, when Buck rolls over in his sleep and slides his hands over Eddie’s stomach and down lower, until Eddie drops his phone on the floor accidentally and then somehow it’s 4am and Buck is breathing hard against him and they both need a shower.

Regardless, he’d learned a few things: don’t buy a guitar online, and it’s really easy to play C and F major.

It comes in handy at the store; luckily, he’s not the only one there so he waves off the bored-looking clerk and looks over the wall of guitars, drawn to the two-tone ones; he reads the signs and tries to look like he knows what he’s doing but in the end he picks up one that proclaims it has a Sitka spruce top and mahogany back, strums the two chords he’d learned from trying to memorize a chord chart in the middle of the night, and buys it without looking at the price tag.

… he probably should have looked at the price tag. 

Given Eddie’s abundance of free time, it’s pretty easy to hide what he’s doing, which is good, because he is objectively terrible at playing the guitar. His fingers feel clumsy; he’d never played an instrument before, favored extra history classes in high school over band, and he had thought that the easy rhythm he can find while dancing would transfer over, but strum patterns and counts get tangled up somewhere between his brain and his fingers and he ends up off-beat and confused halfway through a song. He tries doing things properly, working through a beginner’s book he bought online and hides in the bottom drawer of his desk, but just picking simple melodies and occasional chords frustrates him and he ends up shoving the guitar in the attic for two weeks before he gives in and does what he’d wanted to do all along—follow along with YouTube videos. 

He spends three days looking up songs that only use a few basic chords and finally settles on a simplified version of _Can’t Help Falling in Love With You_ , because Buck loves sappy and Eddie loves Buck, and no one needs to know how when he sings it, he thinks about the first time he saw Buck standing on the porch, crouching down to talk to Christopher, bright smile and laugh lighting up Eddie’s life. 

For a simple song it takes him a frustratingly long time to learn it, but finally, he’s ready for the last part of the plan: sing it to Buck. 

Oh, shit. 

He has to _sing_ it.

In middle school, Eddie’s choir teacher called them over to the corner of the room one at a time and had them sing a few lines so she could determine their voice classifications. Her face had been neutral while listening to him, but a few weeks later while they were singing _The Lion Sleeps Tonight_ , she’d pulled Eddie and Robbie Martin to the side and said, “you know boys, no one will notice if you just mouth the words.”

Eddie mouthed the words. 

So, Eddie makes a new plan. He needed one anyway, because it’s not like he could just pull Buck into the office after work and sing to him, no. Buck wants to be serenaded, and that demands certain things. 

Like getting his son out of the house, for one. No offense to Christoper, but he doesn’t need his extremely sarcastic eleven year old around while he’s trying to be romantic. 

That’s easy enough, though, given that Denny is at his house daily after school—a single text message to Karen and he’s got the house to himself Saturday night and most of the day Sunday. 

He sucks it up and calls Sophia for advice on how to do the rest, hangs up on her after two minutes of her laughing and calls Adriana instead. He always knew she was his favorite sister (okay she wasn’t, but she certainly is _now_ ), because she squeals excitedly and he has to ask her to slow the rapid flow of words so he can actually understand her. 

By the time Saturday morning rolls around, he’s ready. He spreads a picnic blanket out in the far corner of their yard, under the sugar maple trees and near the fire-pit Buck had dug out the summer before they got married, packs a picnic basket with snacks, and sends Chris over to Hen’s just after lunch. He spends the rest of the day with Buck; they drive a well-known route through the changing trees, holding hands and trading kisses across the center console whenever Eddie stops at a red light. He takes him out to his favorite farm-to-table restaurant in Waterbury, then brings him home and takes out his secret weapon: bourbon sours.

Buck is a happy but sloppy drunk, but Eddie’s learned over the years that there’s a point in Buck’s drinking that is optimal for him: happy and affectionate, his hands roaming all over Eddie’s body and his mouth spilling words of adoration. 

That’s the place Eddie’s trying to find tonight. 

It takes a few hours, time he spends making out with his husband while wrapped up in his arms, sprawled out across the blanket with their legs tangled together. Finally, after Buck spends at least five minutes talking about the perfect softness of Eddie’s bottom lip (five minutes because he’s kept interrupting himself to kiss Eddie), he excuses himself under the guise of getting water, grabs his guitar, and heads back outside. 

Buck’s sitting up, leaning back to look at the stars—the view isn’t as good as it was in El Paso when he’d drive out of town and into the desert, but it’s decent enough, and it means Buck doesn’t see him coming until he sits down next to him. He’s not sure what to say so he doesn’t, just strums a few chords and when he knows he has Buck’s attention, he starts to sing. 

His voice shakes, and he transitions to the wrong chord at one point and has to hope Buck doesn’t notice, but he gets through it. He stares down the whole time, both because he’s not great at finding his fingering without looking and because he’s terrified to look at Buck’s face and see a hint of judgement, or amusement, or—anything, really. So when he finished and finally looks up, he’s a little stunned to see tear tracks glinting off Buck’s cheeks in the low light of the dying fire. 

“Eddie,” he whispers, “I love you so much.”

And then Buck’s moving the guitar, setting it down gently at the edge of the blanket, and pressing Eddie backwards as he straddles his waist and leans down to kiss him. 

“I love you,” Buck whispers, and Eddie feels him everywhere, hands on his arms and waist, “I love you,” wet lips kissing across his jaw up to his lips, “I love you, Eddie, I love you.”

Eddie sings to him again. 

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @ [hearteyesforbuck](http://hearteyesforbuck.tumblr.com)


End file.
